People with food allergies, health conditions requiring a restricted diet, and/or who have food preferences may find it difficult to eat at restaurants because of the uncertainty of the ingredients in the menu items offered at the restaurant. Adding to the uncertainty, many ingredients have different names and/or can be found as sub-ingredients in various main ingredients. Some restaurants may post menus and ingredients online. In addition, individuals may bring in cards with the names of ingredients/sub-ingredients they are trying to avoid in order to inquire of the wait staff or cook whether a particular menu item has one or more of the ingredients. However, it may be difficult to locate acceptable menu items for any given restaurant of interest and/or compare acceptable menu items from different restaurants. Furthermore, it may be difficult inside the restaurant to find wait staff who know the ingredients of particular menu items.